Photograph Credit score: Tom Lehrer in 1983 (Public Area)
Tom Lehrer, the musical satirist whose topical songs noticed him affect acts like Bizarre Al and Randy Newman, handed away on Saturday. He was 97.
Mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer, whose musical affect made him a family title within the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, handed away on Saturday at age 97. He died at his dwelling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his buddy David Herder confirmed to The New York Occasions.
The Manhattan native had a ardour for piano from a younger age, although his love of music by no means distracted from his educational profession. A math prodigy, Lehrer studied arithmetic at Harvard at age 15, and graduated with a bachelor’s diploma in 1946. He earned his grasp’s at Harvard the next 12 months. He additionally labored on a doctorate there and at Columbia College, however by no means accomplished his Ph.D. thesis.
Whereas at school, Lehrer wrote songs in his free time, and ultimately recorded his first solo album, Songs of Tom Lehrerin 1953. The discharge grew to become a shock hit and led him to carry out at nightclubs and venues throughout the nation.
After two years within the Military, Lehrer launched his sophomore album, Extra of Tom Lehrerin 1959. He additionally launched a dwell album, An Night Wasted with Tom Lehrerand went again on tour. He grew to become identified for his humorous and sometimes political tracks, with hits like “The Masochism Tango,” “The Wild West Is The place I Need to Be,” and “The Outdated Dope Peddler.”
Within the Nineteen Sixties, he grew to become the resident musician on the satirical comedy TV present That Was The Week That Was. In 1965, he launched his third album, That Was The Yr That Waswhich reached #18 on the American album charts. Regardless of his continued success, Lehrer gave up performing after a live performance in Copenhagen in 1967.
Although he wrote some songs for the PBS youngsters’s collection, The Electrical Firmin 1971, Lehrer by no means toured or launched extra albums. He as a substitute targeted on instructing, taking jobs at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, and the College of California.
In 2012, rapper 2 Chainz sampled Lehrer’s track, “The Outdated Dope Peddler,” on his 2012 debut album, Primarily based on a T.R.U. Story. Lehrer stated the next 12 months that he was “very proud” to have his track sampled “actually 60 years after I recorded it.”
In October 2020, Lehrer launched all music and lyrics he had ever written into the general public area. In November 2022, he formally relinquished the copyright, performing, and recording rights to his songs, and established a web site to host recordings and printable copies of his sheet music for obtain. He added that the web site “will probably be shut down in some unspecified time in the future within the not too distant future, so if you wish to obtain something, don’t wait too lengthy.” As of July 2025, the web site remains to be operational.